8 Common Rule Management Tasks

The rule management tasks that are common to business rules in this and other OFSAA applications are as follows.

This section focuses on the rule management tasks that are common across all rules in this application.

The procedures for carrying out these tasks are the same for each rule type, except for rule-specific steps explicitly stated in the rule-specific documentation.

Topics

·        Rule Summary Page

·        Searching for Rules

·        Creating Rules

·        Viewing and Editing Rules

·        Copying Rules

·        Deleting Rules

·        Dependency Checking

Rule Summary Page

The Rule summary page is the gateway to all rules and related functionality of the application. From there, you can navigate to other related pages. On the header of the Rule summary page, you can per­form simple queries on Folder, Rule Name, and in many cases, the dimension upon which the rule is based.

For example, the following table shows the Rule Summary page components of the Payment Pattern Rule.

Table 1      List of key terms used in Common Rule Summary page

Searching for Rules

Search for a business rule to perform any of the following tasks:

·        Update, Copy, Delete, or Run existing rules.

·        Define methodologies for products or define other processing assumptions

To search for a rule, follow these steps:

1.     Navigate to the Rule Summary page for the appropriate rule type.

2.     Select the folder from the Rule Summary page in which the rule is stored.

3.     (Optional) Enter the name of the rule.

4.     Click Search button.

Only rules that match the search criteria are displayed.

Creating Rules

You create a rule to specify the way you want a particular task or business process to be carried out by the application. Creating a rule is a process in which you specify the properties for the rule itself.

To create a new rule, follow these steps:

1.     Navigate to the Rule Summary page of the Rule you want to create. Every rule has a separate Summary page.

2.     Click Add  to display the Rule Definition page.

3.     Enter a name for the rule.

The name of a rule must be unique within the selected folder for each rule type.

4.     Select the folder in which you want to store the rule.

5.     (Optional) Enter a description for the rule.

6.     Select the required access for other users.

7.     Click Apply or Save, depending on the rule type.

8.     Specify any other properties or options that may apply for the rule that you are creating.

Viewing and Editing Rules

You can view existing rules, and you can edit existing rules, provided you have read/write privileges.

To view and edit a rule, follow these steps:

1.     Navigate to the Rule Summary page of the rule you want to update.

2.     Search for a Rule. For further information, see the Searching for Rules section.

3.     Select the appropriate rule and click Edit   to open the rule you want to update.

4.     Update the Name or Description.

5.     Click Apply or Save, depending on the rule type.

Copying Rules

You can copy rules to avoid having to enter data multiple times. This saves time and effort and also reduces mistakes.

To copy a rule, follow these steps:

1.     Navigate to the Rule Summary page of the rule you want to copy.

2.     Search for a Rule. For further information, see the Searching for Rules section.

3.     Select the appropriate rule and click Copy to duplicate the rule.

4.     Select a folder where you want to save the rule copy.

5.     Enter a unique name for the new rule.

6.     (Optional) Enter a brief description of the rule.

7.     Select the access type.

8.     Click Save button.

Deleting Rules

You can delete rules that are no longer required.

Restrictions on deleting rules are:

·        You cannot delete rules if you have only Read privileges. Only users with read/write privilege and rule owners can delete rules.

·        You cannot delete a rule that has a dependency.

To delete a rule, follow these steps:

1.     Navigate to the Rule Summary page of the Rule you want to delete.

2.     Search for a Rule. For further information, see the Searching for Rules section.

3.     Select the appropriate Rule and click  Delete .

For more information, see the Overview of Common Rule Management Tasks section.

Dependency Checking

You can check dependencies for rules to know where a particular rule, dimension, member, attribute, IRC has been used. This also prevents accidental deletion of rules having dependencies.

To check the dependency of a rule, follow these steps:

1.     Navigate to the Rule Summary page of the Rule you want to check dependencies.

2.     Search for a rule. For further information, see the Searching for Rules section.

3.     Select the appropriate rule or rules and click Check Dependencies  corresponding to the rule that you want to check for.

The Dependency Information window opens containing the following information: Child Object Name, Child Object Type, Folder, Parent Object Name, Parent Object Type, and Folder.

For example, if a Product Characteristics rule 'A' which has been used in a static deterministic process 'P' is checked for dependencies, then the following information is displayed in the Dependency Infor­mation window.

Child object Name –A

Child Object Type – Product Characteristics

Folder – The folder name in which A resides

Parent Object Name - P

Parent Object Type – Static Deterministic Process

Folder - The folder name in which P resides